Charlie Is the Youngest Semi-Finalist of WSO Concerto Competition!
Mar 24th, 2009 by mingyi
Wow, what an honor! Charlie just passed the audio audition of the Westfield Symphony Orchestra’s “Stars of Tomorrow” Concerto Competition and became a semi-finalist! Even though we don’t expect him to actually win the semi-final (update: and he didn’t - after all, he’s competing in the under-18 age group against 12 much older pianists!), the fact that he was selected to be a semi-finalist was by itself extremely satisfying and a wonderful surprise.
Why was it a wonderful surprise, you might ask? Well, because many talented kids did not pass the audition as I heard, AND the next youngest pianist selected for the semi-final is 13 years old while Charlie’s only 8! Most other pianists are 15-17 years old from NY and NJ. Not only so, Charlie’s the only non-teenager in all instrument categories of the entire competition! That’s why it’s such a wonderful surprise and such an honor! I guess that Charlie can only work harder and perform better to show that he does deserve the selection (and he certainly did!!)!
In case you didn’t know, Charlie’s playing Mozart Concerto No. 19 Mv 1, a difficult, long and beautiful piece that he’s playing quite nicely. But hopefully he’ll get even better! While realistically he probably won’t win in the semi-final, at least he got a great, unique chance to show that non-teenagers could play piano concerto nicely too!